Grinding isn't the player's fault

[galahad2069]

...Combat ships need thrusters, distrubuter, weps and shields....That's about it really.

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Shield boosters. Shield cell banks. Armour. Hull reinforcement packages. Power plant. Chaff. Heat sinks.

 

[Vorxian]

The main problem with the 'grind' is a shortage of options to achieve the ultimate goal.

If someone wishes to play the game with the ultimate goal of obtaining a rank to buy a Corvette, there are very very few narrow avenues to accomplish this. This sees a player doing continuous loop the loops to fulfill ranking missions. At first it's ok but the speed of progression against many missions would drive one insane trying to achieve something that should be straight forward. It IS straight forward if you have match sticks to keep your eyes open and happen to be immune to fatigue and burnout.

If you could rank up by doing interesting things associated to your preferred game play options, aka, if I could rank up several ranks by exploring a particular segment of space, then bring it on! but when I have to do 70,000 scan the turret missions in an SRV... meh. It's enveloping me in a cycle of gameplay I'm not interested in, so therefore will grind the pants off it just to get it done.

In short, varied and interesting options to path to the same goal would be very much loved to me!

 

[Winterwalker]

What's the point of flying an Eagle if you can't dent the overpowered AI anymore with your peashooter?

In CZ's (vs Corvettes etc.?) I think it's called an 'assisted' combat bond? I like interdiction patrol particularly (up to FGS) coming clean in iEagle, 0.8Ly range.

Corvettes aren't primary targets obviously, those are things like Viper, Cobra, Asp. Everything else is there to provide 'an interesting' environment and mood music? If you do get a tag on a Corvette of course, it's like about 20 rebuys and it sure isn't a grind .. it's an accomplishment.

 

[CariadocThorne]

Not really, I haven't really posted any of those threads. If you look at my previous posts, it's mainly concerning ships and raging. Forget that last point . Anyways, my point was that it isn't the player's fault, if gameplay was exciting, before you know it, you would have obtained the best ships, etc. The player shouldn't think about grinding, if gameplay was exciting, that's my point. And that's the case in most games I play, although it's not really a space sim genre.

That is the case in this game too, but only if you just do your own thing and focus on enjoying it instead of getting the biggest ships etc.

The main reason people get bored is that they are trying to get to the big ships etc quicker and grinding the most boring parts of the game to do it.

Or it's just the wrong game for them. But that's not the game's fault either.

Yes, that's the ideal situation. You start of in a sidewinder, and you get caught up doing so many interesting things just flying around, and suddenly you're suddenly rich before you know it. During that time you're not even thinking about the grind, because the game has you occupied doing either technically demanding or exciting things. But my point is, people want that too. Grinding is inherently boring by definition. People only grind because they feel that the game at present is boring, and that getting a better ship will resolve that. Unfortunately, when they say that the game is boring, they get blamed for purposefully grinding, but the real reason they say so is because the things you do for fun, may have become un-enjoyable or repetitive for them. Of course, it's hard to please everyone, but adding more depth or making the cockpit more technically challenging to fly might may help other players take their focus off the grind itself and more onto piloting the ship, for example.

If they think a bigger ship is the answer and grind for it, that is their fault, not the game's.

There is nothing you can do in a big ship that you can't do in a small ship. The only difference is the bigger ships let you grind faster. PvP is the exception, but even then you can do it in a small ship, it's just harder (although you'll get better faster).

If you aren't enjoying the game, try something different, if you've tried everything and are still bored, a big ship isn't going to help, it's just not the right game for you.

Hmmm, yes, the only choice if you want access to much of Elite's content, particularly being competitive at anything (and I'm not just talking about pvp).

No it's not. There is absolutely nothing you can do in a big ship that you can't do in a small ship. Big ships just grind faster, so you grind to earn a ship that grinds faster.

 

[Vorxian]

No it's not. There is absolutely nothing you can do in a big ship that you can't do in a small ship. Big ships just grind faster, so you grind to earn a ship that grinds faster.

I 100% agree!

BUT only because I have experience with both. It's like a billionaire telling me money isn't everything, when I spend every day scraping enough to afford a holiday once a year. Only when I'm a billionaire, have everything, bored of doing everything, cba with that $500m yacht, and the thought of spending another two week vacation with a couple of nymphs makes you vomit... you suddenly become aware of what he meant by money not being everything..

ED is the same, people really do look at the big 3 as a target goal... and only when they get there, they realise that actually they still prefer the ASPX or Clipper.

Strange game we have here

 

[NoobyMcNoobFace]

I would like to chip in on this one.

Like many others here I've played a lot of games over the last 35 years. I'm going to say that Elite Dangerous has no more gameplay to it than the first Frontier did. Missions, planet landing, variety of ships, crew. There has been no gameplay advancement on this game, that came on a 720k floppy, even with all the resources. Sure it looks better. Occasionally you can fight other people, but my disappointment with Dangerous is that apparently the BGS is somehow considered "enough" for gameplay.

My view is that it isn't.

I have enjoyed parts of Elite Dangerous, but I'm now hitting the end of my playing cycle without actually doing anything significant. And that's it on the nail. I'm insignificant. I've upgraded several ships, made some virtual money, done a bit of PP, but I have "achieved" nothing. I've spent most of the time performing repetitive tasks to feel competitive, and now I'm either winning easily or losing easily because ship imbalance is just so huge.

In my mind, I need more sense of involvement in the bigger picture. I got that with Warhammer, planet side, etc

I play with 2 other friends. They're in the same position. The game needs more objectives, community goals, and ability to feel as though you can make a difference. In game, not via web blog stories.

 

[CariadocThorne]

I 100% agree!

BUT only because I have experience with both. It's like a billionaire telling me money isn't everything, when I spend every day scraping enough to afford a holiday once a year. Only when I'm a billionaire, have everything, bored of doing everything, cba with that $500m yacht, and the thought of spending another two week vacation with a couple of nymphs makes you vomit... you suddenly become aware of what he meant by money not being everything..

ED is the same, people really do look at the big 3 as a target goal... and only when they get there, they realise that actually they still prefer the ASPX or Clipper.

Strange game we have here

That is still the player's fault.

Plenty of us realised this from the start, and we're still enjoying the game, thousands of hours later.

You don't have to be a billionaire IRL to realize that money isn't everything either.

 

[Bacalao]

I can't agree, none of my ships are fully engineered except maybe my speed build courier but that's stripped down for weight so not much effort.

Most are a mix of G3/4/5 with some stuff I never touch. Combat ships need thrusters, distrubuter, weps and shields. Explorer ships need a good FSD. That's about it really.

NPC's even elite wing assassinations in solo are no real threat, unless I decide to stay after it goes wrong.

And how many scores of hours did you spend getting to that point. The time investment required is phenomenal, if you have 30hrs a week to play and you don't care about the rate of progress you will of course get their in just a couple hundred hours, so a few weeks However, if you have a reasonable amount of time to play then without grinding (which is to say:maximizing gain per unit of time) you are going to lose interest before you can make any real progress to much of the games content (doing well in CGs, getting bigger ships, getting into G3/G4/G5 engineering, being able to fight players, etc).

If you've got only an hour (which is a lot) of time to play in the evening then your options for doing something that will progress you personally in a meaningful way are really limited. You can really just wander aimlessly (which a few people are okay with) doing some missions or something for negligible profit, invisible impact and no sense of personal improvement or gain.

 

[Dbrn47]

And cans of worms were reopened, poor worms, never get a break.

 

[Andovar]

I never did the grind, and still got bored of the game... so there's that.

 

[Bacalao]

No it's not. There is absolutely nothing you can do in a big ship that you can't do in a small ship. Big ships just grind faster, so you grind to earn a ship that grinds faster.

Well, except fly a big ship and a multitude of other things. It's silly to be purposely obtuse and all it does is hinder game development.

 

[Vorxian]

You don't have to be a billionaire IRL to realize that money isn't everything either.

I'll let you know!

 

[Stigbob]

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Shield boosters. Shield cell banks. Armour. Hull reinforcement packages. Power plant. Chaff. Heat sinks.

Armor slows you down, no other effect if you go for run before shields drop (which I always have). So all my armor is lightweight, I've pinned heavy duty and can bang on some levels to it if I have spare mats but don't treat it as a priority.

Shields boosters, yep if you want not a game changer though. Shields cell banks no straight off the shelf, hrp's, chaff straight off the shelf. Heat sinks I engineer to 1 extra bit of ammo so they can fired to match the SCB's ammo count that's very easy.

Power plant I have a pinned blueprint for overcharged so I can boost power output by remote engineering, I've never gone G5 on it no need even with guardian things on board. I do grab the thermal spread experimental on it usually.

 

[Stigbob]

And how many scores of hours did you spend getting to that point. The time investment required is phenomenal, if you have 30hrs a week to play and you don't care about the rate of progress you will of course get their in just a couple hundred hours, so a few weeks However, if you have a reasonable amount of time to play then without grinding (which is to say:maximizing gain per unit of time) you are going to lose interest before you can make any real progress to much of the games content (doing well in CGs, getting bigger ships, getting into G3/G4/G5 engineering, being able to fight players, etc).

If you've got only an hour (which is a lot) of time to play in the evening then your options for doing something that will progress you personally in a meaningful way are really limited. You can really just wander aimlessly (which a few people are okay with) doing some missions or something for negligible profit, invisible impact and no sense of personal improvement or gain.

Five or six hours a week is about my average, when I'm not taking a break.

 

[CariadocThorne]

Well, except fly a big ship and a multitude of other things. It's silly to be purposely obtuse and all it does is hinder game development.

Yes flying a big ship for the sake of flying a big ship. That is literally it.

I've explored, traded, mined, bounty-hunted, PvP'd, done every part of PP, been a tourist taxi, done every kind of mission, flipped systems, and done almost everything you can do in this game, in a small ship, and in a medium ship. I haven't done Piracy or Thargoids.

Soloing Thargoids is one thing in the game which MIGHT not be possible in a small ship, but a medium ship can do it, and I've watched people do it in a small ship as part of a group.

 

[House0fDerp]

Armor slows you down, no other effect if you go for run before shields drop (which I always have). So all my armor is lightweight, I've pinned heavy duty and can bang on some levels to it if I have spare mats but don't treat it as a priority.

Shields boosters, yep if you want not a game changer though. Shields cell banks no straight off the shelf, hrp's, chaff straight off the shelf. Heat sinks I engineer to 1 extra bit of ammo so they can fired to match the SCB's ammo count that's very easy.

Power plant I have a pinned blueprint for overcharged so I can boost power output by remote engineering, I've never gone G5 on it no need even with guardian things on board. I do grab the thermal spread experimental on it usually.

I usually run with low shields as well, but I've had then drop fast and the MGC be more than the difference between my escape and what would have otherwise been a rebuy.

As far as not being a game changer on the rest, engineering boosts a ship's stats to look like those of a class above it in nearly every category at once, especially for shield boosters. With my ships all predominantly unengineered I can't even begin to think about the speed and defense numbers some people post given the same ship.

 

[trigun539]

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[trigun539]

There are no goals in the game - just options, you don't have to do any of them in order to play the game.
It's more sandbox, than arrow pointing left saying go this way, and in order to do so, you must do a,b, and c

Yes, there are goals like missions/ships/and just about anything in the game. Not sure what you are talking about. I don’t mind “sandbox “ but if to do anything in that sandbox means repeating something for hour on end ... then it becomes a grind which is quite an achievement to make a SANDBOX A grind. If it is such a sandbox, just give everything for free!!!!

 

[trigun539]

Gameplay gets stale so fast that there are players whom have sunk 1000's of hours into it...

The point being that just because the game offers you the option to go from sidey to Annie in 24 hours it doesn't mean you have to.

Travelling is part of the game, but you don't have to pick the mission that takes you 1000's of light years from the star, you can pick one where the desired station is right next to it.

You don't even have to find the engineering materials you want, take the ones you have but don't want and exchange them for the ones you do.

All these “answers” of well you don’t need to do that, you don’t need to try that. This is not a valid answer and is NEVER a valid answer. I see this kind of answers everywhere when people talk about ED. STOP finding excuses for the bad gameplay in ED!

 

[Stigbob]

All these “answers” of well you don’t need to do that, you don’t need to try that. This is not a valid answer and is NEVER a valid answer. I see this kind of answers everywhere when people talk about ED. STOP finding excuses for the bad gameplay in ED!

Just because you can grind in a really boring way doesn't mean you have to.

You can level up as a blacksmith in Skyrim by buying iron and leather and making stuff then honing it and selling it back and buying more stuff and so on to 100. That's a job simulator and it's a terrible way to approach a video game, it's no wonder people get bored if they do things like that.

Ignore the grind and as you do something else drop into random USS's/scoop while your shields come up/take missions for mats you'll accumulate all kinds of gubbins and when it comes to engineering you'll already have it, anything you are missing you can trade for.